


So Close

by enjolferre



Category: The Book of Mormon - Parker/Stone/Lopez
Genre: M/M, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-04-26 06:28:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4993795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enjolferre/pseuds/enjolferre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a tumblr prompt: "A drabble about a time McKinley wishes he was dead"</p>
            </blockquote>





	So Close

**Author's Note:**

> "Your soul is haunting me   
> and telling me that everything is fine.   
> But I wish I was dead."
> 
> \- "Dark Paradise," Lana Del Ray

Nobody ever spoke of the incident after they found him. Of course, they’d covered it in therapy. In some strange, twisted way, he’d almost been able to convince himself that those despicable, detestable, abhorrent desires and those perverse, sinful, awful thoughts had managed to exit his body with the blood he’d managed to lose before the paramedics had picked him up in the alley behind the school. The nurse had told him he’d been so close to dying there. So close. So close. He wasn’t dead yet, but he was so close. 

So it was swept under the rug. At first, the Get Well Soon cards arriving at the hospital had just seemed to be in poor taste, albeit with good intentions, but it wasn’t until an old lady from church had promised him the police would find who did it that he realized that everybody was entirely convinced he’d just been attacked by a criminal with a weird thing for not taking wallets and leaving perfectly symmetrical cuts and a perfectly forged note. 

The note was the worst part. Of course, having one’s final confessions read before one had actually passed on was bound to be an uncomfortable experience, but when said final confessions included the words “I think I’m still gay,” poor Connor didn’t stand half a chance. Therapy only got worse from there out, until he’d finally graduated the program when he graduated high school, about two years after the incident, after having had, as his therapist put it, “no noticeable relapses” in either his suicidal or homosexual urges.

A year later, he was on his mission, and he had bigger things to worry about than his own issues. Unfortunately, it was poor Elder Thomas who walked in on him drafting a new edition of that note. Strangely enough, it was almost identical to the previous one. 

“After everything that’s happened to us, you’re doing this?” he shouted, grabbing the note out of Connor’s lap and holding it away from him. 

“Maybe Heavenly Father will stop punishing us once I’m gone!” Connor replied, though he made a point to set his pen down out of reach. “I need you to give that back, Poptarts. I’m not finished.”

“Like Hell I’ll give it back!” Neither commented on how his voice wavered when he swore. “I couldn’t save Mikayla, but I’m going to do everything I can to save you. You - you were going to leave me here alone? Knowing how much it broke me to walk in and find out my sister was dead, you’d make me do it all over again with my mission companion?” 

“You don’t understand, Poptarts - I can’t do it anymore! I can’t do this! The lightswitch isn’t working, it’s stuck, and I can’t - I just can’t - ”

They were both sobbing by the time the other Elders arrived, and it just got blurry from there. Connor vaguely remembered telling them to go away, and he had a rather clear mental picture of Elder Church pulling a shrieking, squirming, fighting Poptarts out of the room by his waist, and he was pretty sure he’d heard Elder Zelder read his note in hushed tones to Elders Neely and Price while Arnold fought to see past the taller missionaries, but it was all a bit of a mess in his memory. It wasn’t until he was left alone with Elders Zelder and Price that things calmed down enough for him to react.

“Elder McKinley, please don’t get upset, okay? Do you think we could call you Connor for now, while we figure this out?” Connor nodded, and Elder Zelder gently reached out and took his hands. “Right. You can call me Nathan, then, okay? And you can still call Elder Price Kevin, of course. After we sort things out, we can go back to normal, though, if you want. But it’s just the three of us here for now.”

“Is Poptarts alrght?”

“He’s fine, Con. Elder Church is calming him down. Elder Neely took everything sharp that we could see out of your room, at his request, and that helped a lot. He’s really worried about you.” Connor decided to pretend he didn’t notice Nathan checking his wrists as Kevin spoke. “We’re all really worried about you.”

“I’m fine, guys, really.”

“Don’t you even think about turning it off right now, Connor McKinley. You are most certainly not fine, and it’s okay to be not-fine, but if you keep repressing everything, we’ll just end up right back here, and I know that’s not a thing any of us want happening.” 

Before Connor could reply, somebody knocked on the door, and Nathan hopped up to answer it. After a moment of whispering, he left the room, warning Kevin to stay right next to Connor until he got back. 

As soon as the door shut, Connor turned to Kevin. “I’m not okay.”

“I know. You don’t have to be.”

“I don’t know what to do.”

“That’s okay.”

“I don’t want to be alive anymore.”

“I understand.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“I do. Most of us do. And that’s okay. It’s okay to feel like this sometimes, but if it happens again, I want you to tell me, so we can figure it out.” Kevin sighed and sat down next to him on the bed. “We can’t lose you. We need you. I need you. Do you think you could stick around for us?” Connor was silent. “Because I really want to believe in you. Could you let me believe in you?” After a brief pause, Connor nodded, and Kevin grinned and pulled him into a hug. 

“Great. Oh, and Connor? If you scare us like this again, I’ll let Poptarts kick your ass.”

Despite the situation, Connor laughed.


End file.
